Talking Drums Of The Walo Walo

Drum Talk

Like sabar drummers, Walo Walo drummers often use
rhythms to represent words. The Walo Walo say the tama can talk because
its wood and skin used to be alive.

The audience knows by
convention what the rhythms represent, just as English speakers know the
notes to “Happy Birthday” represent the words “Happy birthday to you.”
For example, while soloing, a drummer might praise someone in the
audience by playing the drum strokes ran dan dan gan dan, ran dan dan
gan dan ta xin dan to represent the words “Lo dé ti xalat (don’t be
sad); Fi kofi guénou douleur geunne (nobody here is better than
you).”

A drummer’s solo can consist entirely of such phrases. The
tradition so permeates Walo Walo culture, most people in the audience
know what the drummer’s phrases mean.

The women’s two buses soon stop to refuel at a shiny new Mobil
station. Like most rented vehicles in Senegal, the buses were nearly out
of gas when they arrived to pick up the women.

The station seems
out of place, surrounded by a windblown expanse of sand and a rustic
neighborhood of cement compounds with corrugated asbestos roofing. Below
a tall sign in the shape of the Mobil Pegasus, two attendants in red
uniforms finish their prayers on the sidewalk, kneeling and touching
their foreheads to the cement.

While the attendants pump gas, the
women and drummers swarm around the pumps, still dancing and drumming. A
dancer becomes inspired, and the drummers pause in place to concentrate
on playing for her.

One of the attendants puts his hand over the
thiol to stop the music. The women and the drummers let the attendants
chase them all back onto the buses, but not before the thiol player
whips the attendant’s hand with the last stroke of his drumstick.

During a break, a drummer hangs his hat on the
troupe’s thiol. The Senegalese admire many aspects of American culture,
but traditional drumming still permeates their neighborhoods.

A Fat And Tubby Bass

Like similar drums played by various
cultures across West Africa, the tama permits a drummer to control its
pitch. The drum has a carved wooden shell shaped like an hourglass. Each
end is covered with the belly skin of an iguana, and the two skins are
laced to each other with string. Holding the tama under his armpit, the
drummer plays the front skin with one bare hand and a curved wooden
stick, while changing the drum’s pitch by squeezing the strings with his
arm.

The Walo Walo have four sizes of tama. From largest to
smallest, they are the bopp, bal, nder bal, and nder. Traditionally, a
tama troupe has two nder, for a total of five tamas, plus one thiol. The
principal soloist plays the bal. The other drummers usually play
supporting parts, but they may also take turns soloing.

The thiol
is a carved wooden kettle drum. The bottom is closed, and the top is
covered with goatskin, held taught by wooden pegs. The thiol is
sometimes used in sabar, and the Walo Walo play it the way sabar
drummers do, with one bare hand and a thin, flexible branch about 16”
(96 cm) long. Before playing, the Walo Walo thiol player knocks the pegs
loose enough to make the drum sound fat and tubby.

Arriving at
the neighborhood where the naming ceremony will take place, the tama
troupe climbs out of their bus and, still playing, leads the women in a
procession through more unpaved streets. As they walk, other people join
them, as though drawn by a Pied Piper.

The procession spills into
an intersection that is blocked by a crowd. A tarp spans the
intersection like a circus tent, supported by ropes and poles. In its
shade, the women take their place in a circle of rented metal chairs,
several rows deep. Outside, a group of men sit quietly, while onlookers
mill around, and a pushcart vendor tries to sell ice cream.

The
drummers stop to share a meal in the host’s nearby compound, while the
local imam blesses the newborn in private. The drummers eat together,
crouching around two large bowls of seasoned rice and beef, pressing the
food into bite-size balls with their hands.

Refreshed, the
drummers enter the tarp and start to play, while the women take turns
dancing in front of them in a blur of colorful fabric. Each dances for
just a few seconds, in a burst of energy, waving her arms and throwing
her legs in high, forceful steps, or placing her hands on her knees and
gyrating her buttocks toward the drummers with unpredictable twists and
turns, while the other women point and giggle. A young man in a shirt
and tie jumps in their midst, fanning his knees outward and flapping the
fly of his trousers, as though cooling something hot.

Not to be
outdone, the lead tama drummer makes a running leap toward the center
pole. He grabs it high with both hands and hangs in the air, clutching
his drumstick between his teeth.